Carlton is the Reason for the Sneezin'
by Ms.Teragram
Summary: Shawn is sick over Christmas and blames Lassiter


**Title: **Carlton is the reason for the sneezin'

**Rating:** G

**Pairings:** Shawn/Lassiter.

**Warning:** Hurt/comfort

**Disclaimer:** All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Summary: **Shawn is sick over the Christmas holiday and blames Lassiter

Shawn's Christmas had been ruined. That much was painfully apparent by the time he made the second trip to the bathroom. As he sat on the sofa hugging a bucket, he reflected that it was at times like this that he most disliked being an adult. Sure, being able to order take-out on his credit card was pretty sweet (although at this juncture it was difficult to imagine ever being hungry again), but being an adult also meant not having your mom handy to take care of you when you were sick. Normally this situation would have entailed a desperate call to Gus. Gus would have run to the drugstore for him. Gus would have brought him broth and dry crackers. And Gus would have emptied this bucket of its hideous contents. But Gus and his family had gone to Jamaica to stay with relatives for the holidays. Shawn cleared his throat painfully. Never had the words "bah humbug!" seemed so appropriate before.

An enormous sneeze wracked his body and his face exploded in a mist of fluid that seemed to emerge simultaneously from his nose, mouth and eyes. He put a hand to his face, partly to ensure it was still there, and then dabbed gently at his chapped nose with a handful of toilet paper. _You never realize how much toilet paper is like pumice until you rub it over your nose a few hundred times,_ he thought glumly. If Gus had been there he'd have been sure to buy him those tissues with the moisturizer in them.

He contemplated going to Henry's then rejected it. If he was even considering subjecting himself to his father's told-you-so speech he must really be sick. Henry had given him a dozen warnings supposedly intended to prevent him from acquiring a winter cold. But he had refused to get a flu shot, take vitamins, or wear the hideous sweater his aunt had knitted. Henry was right. He had only himself to blame.

Then, as if he were watching a re-run of his own life, Shawn's memory played back to him a scene from days earlier. He and Gus had been at the station. Gus was passing out his Christmas gifts early, in preparation for his trip. He had argued that giving presents to Chief Vick, Lassie, Buzz and Jules was just smart business, and could in fact be written off on their taxes. Shawn, on the other hand had seen this argument for what it was—a smokescreen for justifying Gus's desire to give Jules a framed print called Van Gogh's Bad Cat.

Walking in from the street with a Starbucks coffee cup, Lassiter had taken one look at Shawn's Santa hat, and the casual way he was occupying Lassiter's desk chair, and immediately gone grinchy.

"Sorry Spencer, but if you're hoping I'll believe you're a jolly old elf you're sadly mistaken. I'm old enough to know that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are just one of the many twisted lies parents tell their children, right up there with 'you're special' and 'someday you'll find love.' Now get out of my chair. Scoot."

"Ooooh, someone hasn't been decking the halls and donning his gay apparel," Shawn teased, refusing to budge from the chair.

"I don't know what that means," Lassiter said darkly, "but surrender my seat now before I deck your halls." He set the coffee cup on the desk and crossed his arms.

"You'll have to excuse Carlton," Juliet cut in. "He's grouchy because he's sick."

"I am _not_ sick," Lassiter countered. "Unless you mean sick of this ridiculous excuse for a holiday." His voice did have a more gravelly timbre than usual, Shawn thought, and when he came closer Shawn noted that the tall detective smelled strongly of vaporub and cough drops.

"Cheer up, Lassipus," Shawn said. He slapped his knee. "Sit right down here and tell Santa what you want for Christmas."

"I'd sooner eat sushi off a hooker." Lassiter glared down at Shawn. "If you really were Santa, wouldn't you know what I want for Christmas?"

"Santa can't read your mind,' Shawn explained. "He only has housebreaking powers. You have to write to him with your wish list. Or Skype. I hear he's using Skype now." Shawn picked up a box of Kleenex sitting on Lassiter's desk. "Are these the tissues with the moisturizer?"

It was just after he had presented Lassie with his Streets of San Francisco snowglobe that Shawn had reached out, picked up the detective's Starbucks coffee cup, and taken a large gulp of the contents, which had proven to be gingerbread latte. It was, he now knew, actually a caldron teeming with gingerbread-flavoured viruses.

Lassiter opened his door to find Shawn Spencer standing on his front steps, his teeth chattering slightly despite the two sweaters he was wearing.

"What are you doing here?" Lassiter asked. He hadn't expected visitors, and was prepared to repel any attempt to impose Christmas cheer upon him. One look at Shawn, however, changed his mind. The psychic was pale and sweating, with purple circles under his eyes and red skin surrounding his mouth and nose. He looked like hell.

"I'm here," Shawn said, "about my Christmas card." He held up the offending item: a card with a picture of a mostly-finished Christmas dinner, with only a large pile of green peas remaining. Inside, the card read: Peas on Earth. Happy Holidays from Head Detective Carlton Lassiter.

"What's wrong with it?" Lassiter asked. He had been extremely proud of those cards. Not only were they festive without being religious or commercial, but they had been marked down by 50% at the 7-11 where he'd bought them.

"Well for starters," Shawn said, walking past him into the apartment, "there's no money inside."

Lassiter shut the door and stared at Shawn. "What am I, your grandmother?"

"No, although she does have suspiciously manly sideburns." Shawn sat on Lassiter's couch and pushed off his shoes. Lassiter walked over and peered at him curiously.

"Jesus. You look a mess." He put a hand over his mouth and nose. "Are you sick?" His eyes widened in panic. He'd already spent a disgusting two days at home in the previous week, ruining a work attendance record of which he had been extremely proud, and he did not intend to succumb to illness a second time.

"Yes." Shawn said pointedly. "Luckily, you're already immune, since this is, in fact, _your_ cold."

"You can't prove that." Lassiter took a step back lest the contagion was airborne.

"I intend to," Shawn said, making himself comfortable on the sofa. "I'm going to expose you to my germs and when you fail to become sick, that's my proof."

"Expose me to your germs how?" Lassiter pulled a bottle of vitamin C from a drawer, popped two tablets into his mouth and chewed them thoroughly.

Shawn looked up at him with glassy, feverish eyes. "For starters I'm going to be sleeping on your couch. And when you go to work I'll run about the house licking things like some kind of contagious elf."

Shawn noticed that the television was on and a film was paused, a close up of Bruce Willis in his early thirties, with a mostly full head of hair. A bowl of popcorn rested on the coffee table next to a glass of scotch. "Dude! You do like Christmas!" he accused, his voice raw from his sore throat.

"It's Die Hard," Lassiter explained defensively. "It's a cop movie."

"I'm willing to watch one and two," Shawn said, peeling off one of his sweaters. "But not three or four. Die Hards are only good when they're set during a winter holiday." He balled his sweater into a pillow and stretched himself out on the sofa.

"At least we agree on one thing," Lassiter said.

Shawn grabbed some tissues from a box on the coffee table. "Are these the ones with the moisturizer?" he asked, barely daring to hope.

Lassiter nodded.

"Sweet! You're my hero. What about other stuff?" Shawn asked. "Do you have cold medication? Vicks Vapourub? One of those steam things you huddle over? How about a bucket? We'll definitely need a bucket."

"I'll see what I can do," Lassiter grumbled. He disappeared down the hall, returning several minutes later with a Tupperware container of assorted medicines and a plastic pail he sometimes used for washing the car. "I've got some decongestants…" He stopped speaking when he saw that Shawn was now fast asleep. Unconscious like this, Lassiter reflected, Shawn almost looked…innocent.

He set the bucket on the floor by Shawn's head and the bin of drugs on the coffee table. He stepped into the bedroom and came back with a large dark blue fluffy blanket and draped it carefully over Shawn's sleeping form.

Taking the empty spot at the end of the sofa, he set his bowl of popcorn in his lap, grabbed his scotch and hit play on the DVD remote.

"Merry Christmas, Spencer," he said, glancing over at Shawn's sleeping form as Bruce Willis crawled through an air duct. "Don't say I never gave you anything."


End file.
